To build or unbuild?

That is the question or something along those lines. In the last blog I mentioned that end of 2019 I fell down the rabbit hole of LEGO sets. At the time I had just sent off some sets to my grandson Luca and to Geoff's nephew's kids, Annabelle & Asher. Some how at that point I got started on doing them myself. Not sure how I did that but it turned out to be a very good thing.

We had started planning some short RV trips and other activities when like the rest of you, Covid-19 came along and changed all that. Geoff and I are both in the vulnerable group by age and both of us have Type 2 diabetes. I am older than him by five years and additionally have some COPD issues thanks to over 40 years of smoking. Before any of you get all alarmed over that, I quit smoking around 20 years ago and what issues I have are usually minimal. Basically if I get anything respiratory, I have a hard time getting rid of it and usually need medication and time to do so. You can see how Covid-19 could be a big problem for me.

Based on all that and other factors, I pretty much stayed home and over the last almost year and a half I have been out in the world maybe a dozen times plus a few more times where I just went for a ride and never got out of the car. Geoffrey has done the shopping and medical stuff was taken care of through tele-med visits or just plain canceled. I did go out the two times to get vaccinated but since there is no compelling reason to run around, I pretty much stay home.

I am by nature some what of a homebody and read a lot. I also for many years, over 50, did a lot of genealogy research. I've pretty much run through all the research I can do so that didn't use up any of the time now on my hands. Luckily I had become an AFOL, Adult Fan of Lego, and that helped fill my time. 

At first I had thoughts of designing my own builds once I had a lot of bricks but I soon found my brain just doesn't work that way. I love building the sets and do some minor adapting of builds and build small stuff ... very small stuff sometimes. I do like coming up with stories for my builds and the minifigures.

We have only a small amount of display space so I soon had to unbuild ... deconstruct ... some of my builds to make room for others. Which keeps me even busier and out of trouble.

Almost immediately after I finished the blog I posted last week, FedEx showed up with my current LEGO order, shown at left, a minifigure from the current set and two small sets, #40516 Everyone Is Awesome and #76386 Polyjuice Potion Mistake, a Harry Potter set.

Every Year, LEGO puts out a collectible set of minifigures as well as some superhero and Looney Tunes sets. To bump the order up a little to make the free shipping threshold I included one minifigure from the current series #21. 

These figures are random and from the packaging one never knows what you'll get. This time around I got Airplane Girl which comes with a choice of either hair as shown or a flying helmet with goggles as can be seen on her left.

The first one I got from this series (12 in the series) was the BeeKeeper guy. I now have five different minifigures but of the seven remaining there is only one I really want and that is the Castaway guy. I guess people hoping for the ones they want is what keeps people buying them!

The Harry Potter set is a small one and is one of the ones that comes with an opening method I do NOT like although I have to admit it works better than many similar. 

You have to push down on the semi-circle and then pry open the rest of that end of the box to get the set open. Most sets have small bits of tape instead that are easy to cut open. I much prefer those.

The sets generally come with numbered bags of pieces. As this is a small set, there are only two and the piece with stickers is small, with three mirror stickers. 

 In the upper right of the image to the right is the tool without which unbuilds would be much more difficult and I think my finger nails would go out on strike. When I first started out, I had small sets which do not come with that tool and I got some pretty ragged fingernails but then, in a bigger set, I got one of these tools of which I now have quite a collection!

The other set in this order, #40516 Everyone is Awesome, was the main reason for the order. It was created (as most of you will guess) in honor of LGBTQ month. Many of the torsos, heads and hair are in new colors here. The set was designed as shown and that is how I have done it at first but many people out there have posed there minifigures differently and have them walking around or sitting or whatever. I am contemplating how I want mine to be but for now they remain as designed.

I will try not to bore you all with LEGO stuff, there are naturally other things in life! But I will pop up with stuff here and there. Until next time ... stay safe.